The Glittering Lights (Bantam Series No. 12) (19 page)

The Duke had drawn his horse to a standstill, but he made no effort to dismount.

He sat for a moment looking at the house and then he said:

“I think we had best take our horses to the stables. It is doubtful if anyone will have heard us arrive. Most of the few servants I have left are deaf anyway.”

He turned the stallions head as he spoke and trotted ahead of Cassandra until they came to the stables situated on the west side of the house.

Here there were long rows of stalls which Cassandra could see were empty.

When the Duke shouted, an old groom emerged from one of them. His eyes lit up when he saw the Duke and he touched his forelock respectfully.

“‘Morning, Ye Grace. Oi did not know ye were a-coming home today.”

“Neither did I,” the Duke replied, “and I am not staying. See to these horses, Ned. We shall be needing them later this afternoon.”

“Why, ’tis Juno and Pegasus!” the old man exclaimed delightedly, “ ’tis fine to see ’em again, Ye Grace.”

“I am afraid they will not be staying with us,” the Duke said, and his voice was hard.

He helped Cassandra down from the saddle and for a moment she was in his arms, but she knew he was thinking not of her but of his horses.

Because she could not bear to see the pain in his eyes, she walked ahead of him towards the house.

They went in through a side door which was open and the Duke led her down a passage which led into the main Hall.

The panelling was the beautiful silver-grey of oak that has matured over the years. The sunshine coming through the heraldic coats-of-arms on the glass windows cast strange shadows on the floor.

It gave the place a mystic appearance and the whole house seemed to Cassandra to have an atmosphere that was sweet, calm and happy.

She looked at the exquisitely carved oak staircase curving up to the floor above.

The heraldic newels on the staircase had once been painted in brilliant colours. Now they were scratched and faded, but they still had an inescapable charm that nothing new could have equalled.

“I expect you would like to wash,” the Duke said. “You will find a bed-room at the top of the staircase. I will go and order something for luncheon.”

Cassandra walked up the staircase. It was so beautiful that she felt she should be wearing a gown of satin with an Elizabethan ruff high against her red hair, and long strings of huge pearls.

The bed-room too was lovely.

Beneath a painted ceiling a carved four-poster bed was hung with embroidered curtains. The walls were papered in a Chinese design and the pelmets above the curtains had strange golden birds rioting amongst exotic flowers.

It was, however, impossible not to notice that the carpet was threadbare and the curtains were torn and faded at the sides until there was no colour left.

There seemed also to be a sparsity of furniture which Cassandra guessed had once stood against the walls.

She took off her hat and washed her face and hands in the china basin which stood on an elegant wash-stand carved in peach-wood.

As she did so she suddenly realised that in her hurry to be away from the house she had put no colour on her lips, nor had she used any powder.

‘I doubt if he will notice,’ she told herself.

At the same time when she looked in the mirror she realised that she now looked younger than when she had been using cosmetics.

She was still looking at herself when she heard a knock at the door.

“Come in,” she said, thinking that it might be a house-maid.

But it was the Duke.

“I thought you might like to take off your riding-boots,” he said, “so I have brought you a jack.”

Cassandra saw that he held in his hand a wooden jack which every horseman used to facilitate the removal of high boots.

“Oh, thank you!” Cassandra exclaimed.

The Duke set the jack down on the floor, and then as Cassandra walked towards it she exclaimed:

“But I have no slippers with me!”

“I did not think of that!” the Duke said, “but I am sure I can find you a pair.”

He disappeared. Cassandra pulled off her long boots and knew she would be more comfortable without them.

At the same time she thought she would feel embarrassed at walking about without any slippers on her feet.

She had been waiting for several minutes when the Duke returned. He walked in through the open door holding in his hands a pair of heel-less black slippers with a little rosette on the front of them, very similar to a pair Cassandra owned herself.

“I am sure these will fit you,” he said confidently.

Then as she looked at them Cassandra suddenly wondered to whom they had belonged. He was a bachelor and the behaviour of the women in the house-party last night came flooding into her mind.

She felt suddenly that she could not ... she would not wear the shoes of some other woman, perhaps an actress whom the Duke had brought to his home.

“I do not want them!” she said turning her head away.

The Duke looked at her averted face in surprise.

“Why not?” he asked.

“I do not ... wish to wear ... them.”

He dropped the shoes into the seat of a chair as he advanced towards Cassandra. He took her by the shoulders and turned her round to face him.

“Why do you speak like that?” he asked. “What are you thinking?”

Then suddenly he gave a little laugh.

“You are jealous! Oh, my foolish, ridiculous darling, you are jealous! But I promise you there is no need for you to be.”

He pulled her close against him until as he tipped back her head, his mouth was on hers.

Just for a moment Cassandra was still with surprise.

Then as her lips were soft beneath the hardness of his, she felt something strange and wonderful flicker into life and rise into her throat so that it was almost impossible to breathe.

It was an ecstasy, a wonder like nothing she had ever imagined, she felt as if the sun flooded into the room and enveloped them in a blinding light.

She could think of nothing except that the Duke was kissing her, and that was what she had always known it would be like.

It was a moment so ecstatic, so glorious, so utterly and completely wonderful that when at last he raised his head and looked down into her face, she was unable to move.

“I love you!” he said in his deep voice. “Oh, my sweet, how much I love you!”

She felt that she vibrated at the sound of his voice and then with a little inarticulate murmur, she turned her face and hid it against his shoulder.

“I feel as if I have loved you through all eternity,” he said, “as if you have always been there in my life. Look at me, Sandra.”

She was unable to obey and very gently he put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.

“Why are you shy?”

“I always ... thought that if you ... kissed me it would be ... wonderful,” she whispered, “but not so ... unbelievably ... glorious!”

He looked at her searchingly and yet the expression in his eyes was very gentle.

“I would believe, if it were not incredible, that this is the first time you have been kissed!”

“The ... only ... time!” Cassandra whispered.

“But why?” he asked.

As if the question was superfluous his lips found hers again, and he kissed her demandingly, insistently, and with a passion that made her feel as if he drew her very heart from her body and made it his.

Then as she felt herself quiver with the thrills which ran through her like quick-silver, the Duke released her.

He took his arms from round her so quickly that she had to hold on to him to steady herself.

She had no idea how beautiful she looked; her eyes wide and excited; her lips soft and trembling a little from his kisses; a faint flush on her cheeks; her neck very white against the severity of her riding-habit.

The Duke looked at her for a long moment and then he said almost harshly:

“For God’s sake do not look at me like that! I have a lot of explaining to do, but first let us have something to eat, and then I want to show you the house.”

His tone was so different from when he had spoken of his love, that Cassandra felt as if she had suddenly been shaken into wakefulness.

The Duke picked up the slippers from where he had dropped them into a chair.

“You can put these on,” he said. “They belonged to my mother!”

“I am ... sorry,” Cassandra murmured, and he knew she referred to the fact that she had been suspicious of a previous owner.

“You could hardly think anything else,” he said almost savagely, “seeing the type of company with which you had to associate last night.”

Cassandra put the slippers on and followed the Duke down the staircase and into the Hall.

She felt as if he had suddenly erected a barrier between them, and yet in a way she knew it was inevitable and that sooner or later they both had to face the future.

A very old Butler served their luncheon in a long Elizabethan Dining-Hall with a minstrels’ gallery and an oriel at one end of it.

They ate at a refectory table that was as old as the house itself and sat on high-backed carved oak chairs which had come into the family in the reign of Charles II.

The old servant apologised that there was not much to eat.

But a golden-brown omelette filled with fresh tomatoes was followed by pigeons stuffed with mushrooms. There was no pudding, but a big round cheese was served, which the Duke told Cassandra was a local speciality.

They talked of quite ordinary things while the old Butler shuffled round the table waiting on them, but they neither of them seemed very hungry, and Cassandra knew she was avoiding the Dukes eyes.

It was impossible, when she thought about it, not to thrill with the memory of how he had kissed her.

At the same time she had heard the harshness in his voice when he pushed her away from him, and she knew she was waiting in an agony of apprehension for what he would say to her when they were alone again.

She was afraid as she had never been afraid before that he would tell her that they must say good-bye to each other; that their love could mean nothing because he must marry a woman for her money.

‘How can I bear it?’ Cassandra whispered to herself.

When finally they rose from the table and left the Dining-Hall, she felt as if every nerve in her body was tense in anticipation of what lay ahead.

But first the Duke took her round the house.

He showed her small, panelled Salons, the Great Chamber where once the Manorial Courts were held, the Armoury filled with flags and ancient weapons that had been collected over the years.

There were flags captured at the battle of Worcester; others by an Alchester who had fought with Marlborough in his campaigns; one by an Alchester who had fought with Wolfe in Canada and two more by another Duke who had served at Waterloo.

But there was a sparsity of furniture, no tapestries, and in the Drawing-Room few
objets dart
. When they reached the long Picture Gallery, it was to find the walls were bare.

The Duke said very little.

He only led Cassandra through room after room until finally they came to the Library, and only there were the walls fully covered.

“The valuable editions have been sold,” the Duke said sharply. “What is left is not worth the expense of carting them away.”

She knew he was suffering and as she turned towards the fire which she saw had been newly-lighted, she said softly:

“Will you explain to me what has ... happened?”

“Sit down,” the Duke said abruptly, “because that is exactly what I am going to do.”

Obediently Cassandra sat down in a chair by the fireplace. The Duke stood in front of the fire not looking at her but staring across the room.

“I do not know quite where to begin,” he said, “but I want to make you understand that I was brought up to believe that this house and the Estate in which it stands was a great heritage.”

“Indeed it is,” Cassandra said.

“It was drummed into me almost from the moment of my birth,” the Duke went on. “I was told it was my destiny and my duty to expend my whole energy, my whole enthusiasm, my whole life, on being the ninth Duke.”

Cassandra looked at him, remembering their conversation of the other night.

“So inevitably you ... hated the idea.”

“Not exactly,” the Duke answered, “but it made me long for freedom, to be myself, to be allowed to have one independent thought, apart from what was almost a strait-jacket into which I had to live my life.”

Cassandra gave a little sigh. She was beginning to understand so many things the Duke had said to her.

“At first it did not seem quite so constricting as it did later,” the Duke said. “I had the idea of going into the Foreign Office, believing I could have there a career of my own. Then I learnt that it was impossible: I had too many responsibilities here. Moreover it infuriated my father to think I should have any interests outside the sacred circle of the Alchester domain.”